Power

Losing My Lege: A New Unruly Mob Emerges

Sometimes I think about what the words "unruly" and "mob" mean, and then I think about what right-wing Republicans think they mean, and then I think myself right down to the bottom of a bottle of Shiner or ten.

Sometimes I think about what the words "unruly" and "mob" mean, and then I think about what right-wing Republicans think they mean, and then I think myself right down to the bottom of a bottle of Shiner or ten. Shutterstock

Losing My Lege is a weekly column about the goings-on in and around the Austin capitol building during the 84th Texas Legislature. 

Two years ago, when Texas lawmakers sought to pass what would eventually become known as HB 2, the omnibus anti-abortion bill that has shuttered most of the state’s legal abortion facilities, the orange-clad Texans who took to the capitol to oppose the legislation were derided as an “unruly mob.”

So unruly, in fact, that the first thing the fresh new crop of right-wing lawmakers did this session was change the actual rules of the Texas Senate, in part, so they could prevent people like these orange mobbers from having too much influence on Texas legislative proceedings. They didn’t even use veiled language or make up excuses; they believed the previous session in 2013 was poorly managed and they wanted to see if they could keep it (and this “mob” of Texas citizens actively participating in state government) from happening again.

So they chucked the “two-thirds rule,” a procedural finagle that required lawmakers to clear a bipartisan bar to introduce and debate certain legislation, and gave themselves a lower “three-fifths” bar. The upshot is that it’ll be easier for Republicans to quickly pass—without much public input—any legislation they want. (This might, in the long term, bring negative consequences for the Texas GOP, but that’s another can of red, poorly reasoned worms.)

Why the history lesson, Grimes? Because I think it’s sort of funny that when Texans came out, quite peacefully, by the thousands to oppose anti-choice laws, the Texas Senate was so scared it deep-sixed a nearly 70-year-old tradition to keep it from happening again.

I don’t get it, why’s that so funny, Grimes? Because the other day, a load of aggressive, gun-toting dudes demanding the right to carry around unlicensed automatic weapons in case some errant freedomz need defending at the Piggly Wiggly set about harassing lawmakers in their offices on the first day of the session, frightening legislators and staffers to the extent that they’re thinking of asking the Texas Department of Public Safety to install literal panic buttons in legislative offices to protect them from the gun-toting bros who want to tote more guns.

Days after the office-crashing incident, and after newly elected Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made the grave mistake of implying that passing unlicensed open carry legislation was not his tippy-top priority, those gun-toting dudes enjoyed personalized sit-downs with Patrick’s staff in order to discuss their very important needs and concerns.

To recap: folks come out to protest and testify against anti-abortion legislation, nobody feels the need to install panic buttons as a protective measure, and right-wing senators are so horrified that they’ll toss out a pretty reasonable, bipartisanally beneficial decades-old tradition in order to do anything, literally anything, to keep it from happening again. But if a load of bros with guns follow their fedora-clad leader, Kory Watkins, and physically harass lawmakers, they’re given a seat at Dan Patrick’s table and told that their open carry bills are now on the “fast track.”

Maybe funny isn’t the right word? Sometimes I confuse “funny” with “fucking horrifying.” Sometimes I think about what the words “unruly” and “mob” mean, and then I think about what right-wing Republicans think they mean, and then I think myself right down to the bottom of a bottle of Shiner or ten.

I guess this is how we’re doing business in Tea Party Texas™? Because I have some questions about how this is going to play out in the future. I’ve been thinking about what might have happened if, instead of queuing up to testify against abortion legislation, the “unruly mob” had, oh, I don’t know, recorded open-letter-style videos demanding that “these people give us our rights back or it’s punishable by death.” Like, at the same general time as they were wandering around the local Chipotle armed to the teeth?

Because that’s pretty much what Watkins, Texas’ self-appointed open carry messiah, did this week. After Dan Patrick promised to fast-track Watkins’ preferred legislation.

Let me run that by you again: Watkins and company harassed lawmakers in their offices, so they were given a private meeting with the most powerful staff in the Texas Senate, a staff which promised to give them exactly what they wanted. Then Watkins released a video threatening to kill lawmakers who don’t do what he wants. Just, I guess, to sweeten the pot a little.

So Texans protest anti-abortion legislation and they’re an “unruly mob.” Muslim schoolkids come to visit the capitol and they’re told to recite loyalty oaths or GTFO.

White men storm the capitol with automatic rifles, wave the phrase “punishable by death” around a bunch of elected officials, and get their issues fast-tracked.

Shit, Dan Patrick’s probably on the phone right now trying to figure out how to get Kory Watkins a pony.